


You Wanted History. It's a Mystery.

by Velocity_Owl87



Series: The Soldier and the Captain [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cold War, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Identity Issues, Introspection, Memory Alteration, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Mindwiping, On the Run, Past, Past Brainwashing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 21:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1443490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velocity_Owl87/pseuds/Velocity_Owl87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier finished the mission. He was supposed to go to his handlers and come back. But along the way, the training failed. </p><p>Now the Winter Soldier is on the run, looking for a past he's only seen flashes of. At least they lead him to Steve Rogers, the man who has the answers. </p><p>And the only one who can keep him safe from two opposing groups that are now after the biggest liability since the Cold War Era.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Wanted History. It's a Mystery.

**Author's Note:**

> I had the idea of mixing comic canon with a what if Bucky doesn't get caught and doesn't get wiped right away and how far would he make it if that was the case? Would he be less unstable and more capable of receiving the help that Steve offered him? So this was written. 
> 
> This is borrowing more from the Brubaker run than the actual movie, so there aren't too many spoilers other than the obvious ones here. I LOVED the movie, but I wanted to play with a comic book scenario first. 
> 
> Proofed and edited, but if there are mistakes, they will be fixed.
> 
> Title is from the Kaiser Chief's "You Want History?"

His fingers were twitching and he knew that was a bad thing for a sniper.

He swore quietly as he forced himself to flex his hand slowly and take a deep breath.

He made the shot.

He didn’t stick around to see the aftermath. That was never his job. He quickly packed up and disappeared into the crowd like he was trained to do. He was simply a shadow that disappeared in direct sunlight without leaving a trace behind.

He headed back to the direction he was given as per usual but a flash of bright blue at the corner of his eye sparked a flare of something in him. Suddenly, an old memory of that exact same shade of blue beside him as he rushed through a forest popped into his murky and fragmented mind. It was a flash of a life that was vaguely familiar and yet so impossibly out of reach at the same time.

His hands shake even more and that’s when he makes his decision.

He made it to the assigned meeting point, his clothing non-descript and his gear packed away into a duffel bag. He was supposed to get into the car, but the memory of that bright blue made it all too obvious he can’t ever go back to that emptiness and darkness.

He didn’t even think about it. He just acted on instinct and killed the two handlers that were supposed to get him back. With efficient movements, he rifled through the pockets and pulled out the packets that contained money, identification and anything else he would need to make his escape. He leaves the car and instead heads to the bus terminal he had spotted earlier.

He joined the throngs of travelers and pretended to be studying the boards of arrivals and departures as he made sure that no one was either spotting or following. So far, his luck held out. He read the names quickly, none of them meaning anything to him until he hit on “Brooklyn.” It brought a pang of nostalgia

So he ends up buying a ticket to Brooklyn and blending with the crowd as he looked for an empty seat and settled into it, his small bag tucked in between his body and the panel of the bus. He didn’t know what was so special about Brooklyn, but he guessed he would find out in twelve hours.

In the meantime, he slept. He slept and his dreams were quite murky and muddled. When they pulled up into the New York Central garage, they faded away relatively quickly and left nothing behind in their wake.

But for some reason, the taste of gunpowder and cotton candy stayed on his tongue, a bitterly sweet reminder of something he had lost that stayed until he swallowed down the first coffee of the day.

~*~*~*~

He stumbled across the apartment without even meaning to. One minute he was looking at the window and wondering if it would be empty, the next he was scaling the walls and disarming the security system. It was too easy he thought scornfully as he slid inside and looked around. Even though he had to admit that he hadn’t been expecting for there to be a security system in what looked to be nothing more than an abandoned warehouse. Like the ones that used to dot the area when he had been a child.

He gritted his teeth and forced his mind to come back into the present with some effort. He had no plan, no contacts and a very real need to lie as low as he possibly could. They would bring the part of him back and he knew it would be worse, warring memories competing with the calibrated blankness necessary to be the perfect tool. The part of him that was leaking through, colouring his perceptions would disappear again and he didn’t know when exactly he’d be able to get it and the promise of a particular man and a real life back.

The other side of the spectrum was that he could probably never would at all and the idea was so shockingly painful that he had to take a deep breath to tame it to keep it under control. He didn’t need emotions to complicate his life at the moment. He needed a safe place to recoup and then decide what he was going to do next. Giving himself up to SHIELD custody was probably the smartest thing he could do, but there was another option. He just had no idea as to what it could be.

He heaved himself into the room and looked around, frowning as he took in his surroundings. He turned to close the window and set his bag down beside him. It was disturbingly eerie how much of an echo of the past the room was.

The décor was familiar and that familiar corner of his brain tingled in appreciation for the simple furniture that recalled Thursday nights with the radio playing the big band tunes and the scent of stew cooking on their-

He didn’t even see it coming, the blow that had him stumbling backwards before he switched into fighting mode. He swore as he tasted blood in his lip. He had been getting sloppy after he had finished off the last target. He hadn’t even been ready for an attack he should have seen coming.

He managed to get a few blows in, getting a small spark of satisfaction when he heard the grunts of pain when he connected. But it wasn’t enough. Even though he was still on top of his game, he miscalculated by just a few moments. A few steps.

He didn’t know what it was that he missed. Only that whoever it was that he was fighting was as strong and fast as him and then it was all black without any murkiness at all.

~*~*~*~*

He woke up gradually, unlike the times before. His vision was blurry for a few seconds before it cleared to reveal a blonde and blue eyed man that looked familiar. That looked so much like _home_ that it seized his heart in his chest when the thought hit him.

“S..Steve?”

The other man’s face crumpled and the next thing he knew, he was being hauled onto his feet and engulfed in an embrace and he swore he had never felt such relief as a sense of safety washed over him at the contact. He should have been pushing his way out of the embrace. He should have been burying his knife into the man’s gut and watching the blood flow out.

His fingers twitched, but the icy surety of oblivion stilled his movements. He hadn’t ever been afraid. He hadn’t known what it meant to have the same emotion that had clouded the eyes of his targets. Now that he was experiencing it, he could appreciate their desperation and glassy stares fully.

He tried to picture the same fear, the same resignation on Steve’s face and that was enough to make him simply stop. Steve. He couldn’t hurt Steve. Not when he had promised to always have his back. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything other than relax into the touch and let the other man hold him until his eyes were awash with tears that he hadn’t been aware were gathering in his eyes until then..

“Bucky. Oh my god. Bucky.”

Bucky.

Huh.

So that was his name. Bucky.

_~*~*~*~*_

“I should be taking you into SHIELD right away.” Steve muttered the moment that they had been able to pull away from each other without feeling like they were losing their lifelines.

Despite the warring memories over lapping in his head of war-time Brooklyn and the countless missions he had gone in all different parts of the world, he forced himself to stay still and simply listen. His instincts, honed to razor-sharp accuracy were telling him to run. That he needed to put distance between himself and Steve. Even though this Steve was bigger than he was used to, a bit more worn and a bit more dented, he couldn’t leave. It was selfish of him to want to stay, but he was all too aware that it was only a matter of time before the grip on sanity that he had would slip away and he would be drawn under the bloody and inky waters of his past and all that he had been and done.

Bucky remained silent as he sipped the coffee that Steve had poured for him as he forced himself to calm down and think logically about the situation. Bucky knew that it was nerve-wracking to have the Winter Soldier suddenly drop into an apartment. Not only was he fragmented as all out, there was no guarantee that the calm would last.

At least he had finished the target as he was programmed to do. He didn’t think that he would have remained so calm otherwise. He was dangerous and despite Steve being more than capable to handle him, there was no getting around the fact that he was a threat. He was a weapon, first and foremost. He was Bucky Barnes a distant second after that.

He swallows the last mouth he took, savouring the richness of good coffee, vanilla creamer and brown sugar before he breaks the oppressive silence that has fallen between them.

“It would be the wiser move.”

At Steve’s frown, he shrugged nonchalantly, trying to convey a confidence that he didn’t quite feel.

“They will hunt me down and try to bring me back. If they succeed, I won’t be Bucky any longer. In fact, you may be my next hit.”

Steve flinched at the blunt words. But he couldn’t soften the blow. Not when he was positive that it would happen. The longer he was away from them, the clearer things became. He wasn’t quite the Bucky that he sensed through the memories that leaked in bright flashes into his mind, but it was a start. The longer he stayed with Steve, the longer he would be anchored and make it harder to have his mind ripped through shreds and hammered into a blank slate on which orders would be printed on again.

“Who? The Soviets? Hydra? The FSB?”

Bucky took another long swallow of coffee before shrugging.

“Any of them? All of them? I don’t-“

He wasn’t done speaking when he pulled out the gun and shoved Steve out of the way and stood in front of him.

“Never knew you kept assassins as company, Captain.” The Black Widow’s dry voice broke the tense silence. Steve was blinking up at her, his mouth dry as he realized that _he_ hadn’t even sensed her coming in, yet Bucky had and had been ready for it. Even more surprising, he had made sure that Steve wasn’t in the line of fire.

“Yeah, well, what can I say? I have a gift of being friends with the people you’d least expect.” Steve drawled out as he got to his feet, yet stayed in the same spot behind Bucky. He had a feeling that even if he wanted to, Bucky wouldn’t have let him move.

Natasha smirked, but put her own weapon down and casually picked up Steve’s long discarded cup of coffee and took a swallow of it. Her expression stayed the same, even though the coffee was probably stone cold by then.

“So what are you planning to do with him? It’s not like we have a lot of options.”

Steve frowned.

“What do you mean?”

In response, she reached into her jacket and slid over a weather-beaten file with Cyrillic writing on it as well as the usual red-shield stamp on it.

“They know he’s gone rogue. They will be coming for him.”

“So I guess SHIELD-”

Natasha shook her head. 

“You'd never bring him out. He'd be trading one prison for another. It wouldn't matter that he is a war hero. He's the Winter Soldier. Red Room trained. How much do you think that would be worth to Fury? To the council?”

Steve's face crumpled at the edges, his eyes suddenly looking so hollow and so tired and sad. Bucky winced alongside Natasha. He remembered that expression. That was the one he always had whenever he had to make a call that could take someone's life. A call that no one else could make except for him and even though it pained him, he would do it. 

“ _That was just who he was. That was why we followed him.”_ The thought came unbidden into his head, but he didn't move. He simply set his cup down and waited for the verdict. He would understand if Steve wanted to hand him over. He had caused so much direct and indirect destruction. It would be for the best. Especially when the cracks would widen and he would crumble and break into messy debris soaked in blood. 

Steve shook his head and his hands clenched into fists at his sides. 

“I lost my best friend. I lost a lifetime and now that I have my friend back, I'm not going to lose him to paperwork, laboratories, and cells. How much of a head start do we have at the moment?” Steve asked, the silence shattering abruptly.

“Three days, more or less. I wouldn't recommend going anywhere in the East, if that's what you're thinking about.” Natasha replied dryly, putting the mug back onto the counter. 

“What suggestions do you have then?”

“The Nordics. I'm sure I still have a safe house in Ystad.” 

Steve exhaled deeply and nodded to himself before he looked at Bucky. 

“How much time do you need to get ready?”

Bucky's mouth twisted into a wry smile at the question.

“I'm always ready. How much time do _you_ need?”

~*~*~*~

Sweden was still the same as it had been the last time Bucky had been there sometime in the eighties. His mouth twisted in remembrance of that mission. He wondered if they had seen how far reaching the consequences of killing Palme would have on the psyche of the nation. How it would have destabilized them and made them ripe for infiltration.

His smile got more sardonic as they travelled to Ystad and to farmhouse. They would know. They only put him on those kinds of missions whenever they needed to strike a major blow. He faced the window so that Steve wouldn't see his expression. He could see it was unnerving even with the smudged window reflection he was facing. 

The farmhouse turned out to be suitable for their needs with only a bedroom, a kitchen and a small bathroom. It was so reminiscent of the old days that he had to clamp his mouth shut in order to keep himself from reacting. Natasha had left them with strict instructions to stay put until she was sure it would be safe and that was both a blessing and a curse. 

Days with Steve, in the Swedish countryside and his rapidly shattering psyche. 

He wondered if he would be able to survive it all without succumbing to his instincts or the guilt of the remembered jobs and unfocused past. 

“Hey. How you holding up?” 

A tentatively placed hand followed the quiet question and Bucky stilled. He hadn't been touched with such care or even  _ asked _ about his mental state in so long that he had to pause to think of exactly that. 

He lifted a shoulder, not the one with the metal arm and its muffled sensations and shrugged. He didn't know. He wasn't fine. But he wasn't bad. He just...He just _ was. _

“It's going to be fine.”

Bucky turned his head and looked straight at Steve, who was looking at him with a fierce fire of determination burning in his guileless blue eyes. 

“I know that you're not _him._ Nor are you Bucky. Not like how I knew him.”

“Then why put in the effort of getting me away from SHIELD? Why not leave me behind? It would save you a lot of grief.”

“Because despite everything, you're...you're...you're my best friend and that's what best friends do. You could have left. You could have killed me. But instead, you're here and that says that you're ready to make the effort. To be a new Bucky Barnes.”

Bucky swallowed hard at that. It was true. He could taste the truth and the conviction in Steve's words and he believed him, because Steve was honest to a fault. Always had been. Just like he was mulish as hell and if he believed that he was worth saving, Bucky had to believe him.

“Yeah. That's what they do. They don't leave each other either.”

END.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> the FSB-According to my research, this is what the KGB became. I'm not sticking solely with the movie canon on this one and that's why they make an appearance. Bucky isn't just left and used by Lukin. He's still in operation and deadly with it.
> 
> Palme and Sweden-This is alluding to the as of now, still unsolved assassination of the Swedish PM Olof Palme. It was a very crucial event in Swedish history that still resonates today due to the nature of the attack and the fact that its been unsolved. It made sense to have that bit of an allusion in here, since the Winter Soldier is basically supposed to have made huge hits that changed a lot of the geopolitical game. This is not meant to be disrespectful to the Swedish people or to Palme. 
> 
> Ystad-It's a coastal and small southern town in Skane that apart from Wallander fans, wouldn't be a big destination for most people. Yep. That's it.


End file.
